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Have you ever wondered why the Guggenheim is always covered in scaffolding? Why the random slashes on the exterior of Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, supposed to represent Berlin locations where pre-war Jews flourished, reappear, for no apparent reason, on his Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto? Or why Frank Gehry's Stata Center, designed for MIT's top-secret Cryptography Unit, has transparent glass walls? Not to mention why, for $442 per square foot, it doesn't keep out the rain? You're not alone.

In Architecture of the Absurd, John Silber dares to peek behind the curtain of "genius" architects and expose their willful disdain for their clients, their budgets, and the people who live or work inside their creations. Absurdism in a painting or sculpture is one thing—if it's not to your taste, you don't have to look—but absurdism in buildings represents a blatant disregard for the needs of the building, whether it be a student center, music hall, or corporate headquarters.

Silber admires the precise engineering of Calatrava, the imaginative shapes of Gaudi, and the sleek beauty of Mies van der Rohe. But he refuses to kowtow to the egos of those "geniuses" who lack such respect for the craft. Absurdist architects have been sheltered by the academy, encouraged by critics, and commissioned by CEOs and trustees. They stamp the world with meaningless monstrosities, justify them with fanciful theories, and command outrageous "genius fees" for their trouble.

As a young man, Silber learned to draw blueprints and read elevations from his architect father. In twenty-five years as president of Boston University, Silber oversaw a building program totaling 13 million square feet. Here, Silber uses his experience as a builder, a client, and a noted philosopher to construct an unflinchingly intelligent illustrated critique of contemporary architecture.

Le Corbusier's megalomaniacal 1930s plan for Algiers, which called for the demolition of the entire city, was mercifully never built. But his blatant disregard for context and community lives on. In Boston, Josep Lluis Sert's unprotected northeast-facing entrance to the B.U. library flooded the first floor with snow and ice every New England winter. In Los Angeles, sunlight glinting off the sharply angled steel curves of Gehry's Walt Disney Music Hall raises the temperature of neighbors' houses by 15 degrees. And of course, Libeskind's World Trade Center plan, with its spindly 1776-foot tower and quarter-mile-high gardens, proved so impractical it had to be re-designed, in an exasperating negotiation hardly worthy of the complex tragedy of the site.

Dr. Silber, an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, asks all the questions that critics dare not. He challenges architects to derive creative satisfaction from meeting their clients' practical needs. He appeals to the reasonable public to stop supporting overpriced architecture. And most of all, he calls for responsible clients to tell the emperors of our skylines that their pretensions cannot hide the naked absurdity of their designs. 103 color illustrations..
Price: $12.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The novel, Taylor's first, tell the outlaw tale of Trenchmouth Taggart, a man born and orphaned in 1903, a man nick-named for his live long oral affliction He picks up a gun during the West Virginia coal mine wars and spends the remainder of his years on the run, changing his identity and playing a mean harmonica. Trenchmouth Taggart's epic story, like the best ballads, etches its mark deep upon the memory..
Price: $10.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Ellie, twenty-year-old daughter of Mary Swan and Robbie Bartholomew, knows all about dashed dreams and waiting Because of a childhood accident that left her disfigured, Ellie has never been able to embrace the God of her parents Though Ellie doesn't understand the significance of the place, nor the mystery that seems to surround it, she agrees to travel with her mother to a site in Scotland known as the Dwelling Place. But when illness strikes, Ellie instead reluctantly moves back home to care for her mother. As she and her mother struggle to reconnect, Ellie begins to wonder why Mary Swan wanted to go to the Dwelling Place. Is there a dwelling place for Ellie as well? And does she have to travel halfway around the world to find it? From the author of the acclaimed The Swan House..
Price: $27.04 [Notify me when price goes down.]

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD LEON SANDERS has a mug that looks like it should be hanging in a post office somewhere If he didn’t have his twisted sense of humor, he’d have nothing at all. So it’s no wonder to Leon and his friends that the gorgeous Amy Green will never even look twice at him.
However, there is one girl who might: Melody Hennon. Everyone at Zumner High keeps their distance from Melody because she was burned in a childhood accident. Leon has avoided her, too, until the day he tells her a bad joke and makes her laugh. Although Leon worries what people will think of him dating Melody, he’s happy to have someone in his life who thinks he’s special. That is, happy until Amy Green asks him out after Leon saves her from getting detention. Will Leon give up a shot with the Beauty so that he can live the fairy tale with the Beast?.
Price: $4.77 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"I am trying as a Saudi woman to raise the awareness of unstable men who see women as inferior, who resort to violence, and who are abusive to women."
--Rania al-Baz, on 60 Minutes

"I don't feel like I'm a hero... I feel that no woman should be a victim to her husband, or a victim in any way. A woman should have the ability to choose her own destiny "
--Rania al-Baz, on The Oprah Winfrey Show

Every morning for over six years, Rania al-Baz has been the smiling face of a family program on Saudi television. She was a young, beautiful Saudi TV news anchor--the first woman to have such a job--when her abusive husband beat her into a coma and left her for dead. She remained in a coma for four days and later underwent thirteen operations to reconstruct her face. When she agreed to let horrifying pictures of her ravaged face be made public, her story sparked general criticism of Saudi culture. A month after the tragedy, the first Saudi research into domestic violence began at King Saud University in Riyadh. Rania's story subsequently appeared in the press all over the world.

But Rania's memoir is not simply the story of the violence she suffered; nor is it a tale of revenge. She denounces neither Islam nor the traditions of her country, nor even her former husband--only his violence. It is this generosity of spirit that carries her story--about her Saudi Arabian girlhood and adolescence, about her disastrous first marriage, about her public life as a TV journalist, about her life as a mother, about her evolution into an activist on behalf of women..
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Developed from a series of articles that touched thousands of readers and won journalist Tom Hallman the Pulitzer Prize, Sam is the true story about fitting in, medical miracles-and the inner strength of one courageous boy.

Sam Lightner was born with a rare life-threatening facial disfigurement. For years, doctors refused to operate on him-until a team of surgeons finally decided to undertake a risky, thirteen-hour procedure. But after Sam begins his freshman year of high school, complications arise, leaving him comatose and his family hopeless. But one doctor-pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby-refuses to give up. She stays by his side, until he moves a finger, a foot, and then finally rebuilds his life....
Price: $6.28 [Notify me when price goes down.]